


Kind of Peace

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 09:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: Post-war, Shepard would most like to be away from people for a little while--Thane excepted. Some others may apply.





	Kind of Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RockPaperbackScissors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockPaperbackScissors/gifts).



> Mass Effect Holiday Cheer gift for rock-paperback-scissors!

She has to swim up through the darkness to see him.

She can hear him. Fuzzily, as though from a great distance, only catching one word out of three—though how would she know what she's missing? Only that the cadence and the tone sound familiar to her. A prayer. Like he's calling her forth from the depths of a furious ocean, the sound of it the only thing that could reach through the waves.

And maybe it _is_ a vast ocean. A sea, as he'd said. She can't exactly feel her body—maybe a good indication that she doesn't have one, anymore. When she tries to remember what happened last, she only has...images. Falling. Dust settling. Her hand, bare and bloody, attempting to stretch in front of her and push against some kind of stone. Her fingers crying out in protest.

Shepard remembers pain, but she doesn't feel any.

The words are clearer now. Maybe one in two, and then she's only missing a second here or there while something washes and recedes in her ears. The darkness begins to drift away.

It takes a moment to realize that her eyes are open. The room is dim, the lamps off, and only a grayish pre-dawn light hovers in the air as if waiting.

The voice stops speaking. She tries to turn her head and can't; she tries to remember how she opened her eyes and can't. But the person in the room with her seems to know, and leans into view so that she doesn't have to move to look at him.

"Miranda thought you might wake up today," Thane says. " _Are_ you awake?"

Her lips are very dry. That little touch of sensation has come back to her. Something horrible is waiting behind it, though. She can sense it, though she hardly believes it.

"Are we across the sea?" she asks, her voice a boneless croak.

He lets out a long, relieved breath, and gently presses his forehead to hers. "Not yet, siha."

* * *

She's out of breath, and sweating something terrible—all the way through her shirt, a real accomplishment mid-December even in the American southwest—but she's at the top of a cliff, and the view is goddamn breathtaking, all the way across the winter-barren, rain-ravished landscape. The sweat is sort of a bonus, to go along with this.

"It could've all been gone," Shepard says, after just enough hard breaths to get some air back in her lungs. "A while back, Earth had a crisis that probably looked a lot like yours."

Beside her, Thane blinks double, looking out over the canyons below them. He breathes a little heavily, too, the still new-ish lung working the way it should. She listens for the wrong sort of noise, a kind of whistle she heard when things were at their worst, and detects nothing.

"I've read—seen images—that Rakhana did not look dissimilar to this, before," he says. She hears a wistfulness in his voice, a displacement, and knows it intimately. "The hanar sometimes told me that, if I wanted to experience my homeland, I might do it well here."

She reaches across the gap between them to touch his hand. "How did Kolyat like it?"

Now he smiles, just slightly. It's her favorite smile, almost secretive, but emotive nonetheless. "I think, after so long in cities, he found it unnerving. But he liked the lizards, sunbathing. I did, too."

"Maybe we can come back when it's warmer," she says. "I'd like to join the lizards, to be honest."

They both quiet, watching the sun creep lower in the sky. Shepard's arm aches, but she does her best to ignore it. She wants to hike on, another few miles, before they make camp tonight, and she can push through. She can't climb a cliff face, but she can walk uphill just fine.

She sighs, her breath fully quieting in one last gust. She doesn't quite believe in miracles, but she believes in miracle- _workers_ , particularly in such people who are also named Miranda. That she could be restored to such a condition, barely a year after her plunge through atmo, is unthinkable.

"Do you like snow?" Thane asks, when it's been quiet just long enough.

She glances at him sidelong. "That's an odd question."

"There isn't snow. Not on Rakhana, not on Kahje." In those last three words, she senses how much he misses the hanar, in his way.

"I never saw much," Shepard says. "I lived as far south as I could, crowded city, so I wouldn't freeze to death in the winter. So there were always people to..." She clears her throat. It's still sort of a sheepish subject, even after all these years and even with a person who knows her ugly spots plenty well. "Well. Thieve from."

"Practical," Thane says, as tolerant as ever. And perhaps petty theft does look—well— _petty_ to him.

She's always liked this about him, that she can offhandedly say these heinous things and he will not turn to her with his liquid black eyes and _pity_ her. Never once, as Miranda labored over her broken body a second time, did he look at her with pity. Perhaps it was that he had none to spare; he'd been recovering from his own trials at the time. Or perhaps it was that he understood, that everyone who looked at her with admiration also looked at her with something sour held in their mouths too, and that she didn't need more.

People, surely, had looked at _him_ that way, too.

"But it's pretty," she admits. "Sometimes I…" She falters.

He turns his hand so that it's wrapped around hers and squeezes, the same way he did on the day she woke up, and she's glad that she can feel it now.

"When I was still a kid, and it was close to the holidays, I would...imagine...this house. Somewhere forested, maybe, or in the mountains. It looked like the ones I could see on the vids, in the storefronts, with all their flashy displays. And the snow would be falling softly outside, and inside there was a fire going, and all the roasted hot dogs I could eat." She snorts, genuine amusement at remembering. "I thought hot dogs were great. Didn't get a lot of them, running with the Reds."

"It's a nice vision."

"It got me through." She pauses, considering. "Do you want to see snow?"

He shrugs. "Someday. I am in no hurry."

They aren't given often to fits of emotion, either of them, but there's a relief that sweeps through her that mimics the moment he opened his eyes again and _breathed_ , and she follows that wave to lean over and kiss him deep—warm and alive and vibrant against her. His arms hold her close.

"We'll go, then," she says, when she pulls back to catch her breath again. "Someday."

He smiles. "Another few miles?"

It is a wonderful kind of work, this long walking across broken earth, no weapon in hand and no armor to encase her, even if her arm is still so stiff and sore; even if the mended scars littering her body pull and ache; even if there's a spot right at the joint of her hip that might always be tender on too long a step.

"Let's try to make it to sunrise point," she agrees, "before we stop for the night. I think you'll like it."

* * *

They find the place and sleep early, combining their very hardy sleeping bags to share body heat. It's a cool night, cool enough that their breath fogs the air a great deal above them, and both keep their clumsily-knitted caps on their heads through the night. Despite all this, of course, Shepard's sweating by the time she wakes in the cool gray pre-dawn light; the thermal sleeping bags did their jobs, and she's not missing any digits.

As soon as she stirs, Thane, too, is awake. She long thought she would never meet a lighter sleeper, and it was true while she knew only humans, but Thane achieves a state of alertness in a span of time that should be impossible.

"I'll build up the fire and start the coffee," he says kindly.

She lets him without any token protest. Things were too close there at the end to begrudge any kindness between them. They have time, now, time to trade these simple, pleasant things. She luxuriates in every one.

She beckons him back, though, as the horizon begins to turn the faintest pink. They sit huddled, side-by-side, with blankets wrapped around their shoulders and the scent and sound of very strong coffee filtering through the air around them as the sun begins to peek above the horizon. It creates the most gorgeous color, touching everything that so recently came so close to obliteration with warmth—even them, this odd pair sitting on their sleeping bags, noses nearly numb from cold.

It's only when all of the beautiful colors have faded away, gently dispersed, that Thane says, "I like it here."

Shepard chuckles. "I hope you'll stay a while, then."

They watch the sun a little while longer and then go about the business of breaking down their camp. She reflects for the first time that it's getting a little close to Christmas; Thane's question about snow the day before reminded her. She can't help but remember the holidays—well, the one holiday, really, the first go on the SR-2—were like on the Normandy. The little candy canes—some of them very spicy rather than minty, a little prank by Joker—hung on every ledge and strewn over most of the surfaces in the mess. They'd found their way into Miranda's office, even, the crook notched over the rim of her mug, flavoring whatever hours-old coffee remained within. She'd refilled such a cup on a night when Shepard couldn't sleep, when she'd been building the most tasteless gingerbread house known to man in the kitchen. She'd helped with the frosting. Shepard had told her…well, not the story she'd told Thane, exactly, not in full. But she'd told Miranda that she'd liked the idea of such an isolated house, covered in snow, as a child. Miranda had liked the vision.

"Shepard?"

She glances up. "Hmm?"

Thane nods to her sleeping bag. "You've been holding that for fifteen seconds."

She glances down at the sleeping bag in her hands, a little amused. "Oh." She starts to roll it up. The more she moves her hands in the cold morning air, the less they ache, bit by bit. "I was just remembering. Got caught up."

Something relaxes around his shoulders, and she feels an awful pang of remorse. She knows, of course, how closely he has watched her this entire trek, though he has not made her feel watched. The slightest deviation in behavior must always make him wonder if something has gone wrong with her implants. If she will recede back beneath that darkness.

"The candy canes," she says, so that he will not feel compelled to remark on what she has noticed. "The spicy ones."

His lips quirk at the corners. "Those were my favorite."

"And they nearly burned a hole through my tongue." She slings her pack and her sleeping bag over her shoulders, getting everything settled. "I wonder what everyone's doing for the holidays this year."

"We can check in with them," he says, picking up his own pack.

She does consider it. She wavers on the point, even. But she shakes her head. "No. Let's not interrupt anything. It's been…" She trails off, searching for the words. "After everything, we all should have some peace, right? Some recharge time."

He crosses the campsite to meet her and, without prompting, without forewarning, cups her face in his hands and kisses her. Soft at first, and then more deeply. It is not very practical, and sort of romanticized thinking, but the cold wind leftover from the long night does not bite at her so deeply while he's holding her.

"I bow to your wisdom," he says when they pull apart, and she laughs, enjoying the breathlessness of it, as they set out on the trail again.

* * *

It is, in her own words, the most at peace she has felt in a long, long time. There were weeks confined to her bed in the hospital that was slowly being repaired around her. There were longer months of physical rehabilitation, excruciating months until one day she realized that she only noticed the pain because it arrived later and did not press as hard. And now, after all of that, she can be alone again, without so many people poking and prodding at her day in and day out.

Well. Alone. That's how she finds herself thinking of it, because Thane's presence at her side doesn't—has never—drained her the way many other people do. Even people she would consider dear friends. But hiking desert canyons with him feels as comfortable as if only her shadow is behind her. Their long, easy silences are as good as their conversation, which does not center on an approaching precipice but on themselves, on each other. Stories traded, observations made.

She is very happy here.

The product of a miracle-worker, her body may very well be; it still has its limits, though, and those are reached at about the point Miranda warned her they would be. Two weeks of sleeping on the ground in plush sleeping bags—very padded, but with bedrock beneath them nonetheless—and her body aches nearly as fiercely as it did after the first month of rehab. They are, luckily, already approaching civilization again, so she won't have to bear the indignity of being skyvaced out.

"Ugh," she says, when she catches one of Thane's very covert sideways glances. "I don't think anything's permanently damaged, but yeah, I'm running on fumes."

He nods. "What was it you used to say? About coffee and showers?"

She manages a laugh. "Get me a black coffee and a shower and I'll be just fine? I wish that would still cut it. I think I need a bed. A real bed. A _soft_ bed."

"Easily arranged. We only have a mile to go."

"And I wouldn't mind a coffee," she adds. "Never do, in fact."

"Maybe decaffeinated."

She pulls a face. "What's the point?"

He gives her a sidelong look. It's a nice look, a _your-stubbornness-exacerbates-me-but-I'm-also-fond-of-it_ look. "The question should actually be, what's the purpose of caffeine? You no longer need to keep yourself awake past your limitations."

"I'm still trying to grasp that concept."

He reaches out to take her hand. "You're doing very well so far."

* * *

The soft bed helps a little, the long bath more so. Still. It has been a whole month, at this point, since she has checked in with Miranda, and it's probably time to do so, just to make sure everything has survived her little trek the way it was intended to. The first outing, really, of Shepard 3.0. She tries to find humor in that and does, a little.

_Lucky you_ , Miranda's reply to Shepard's grumpy message reads. _I'm not far—just north in Colorado. We'll assess when you get here if you need a hospital or not._

Shepard doesn't like the sound of _that_ , not at all, but at least Miranda is directing her to a private residence first. Thane finds a small, short-haul flight for them, Shepard dresses in the nondescript jeans and hoodie that haven't quite been fully broken in yet, and they lean against one another for the duration of the plane ride, drowsing.

It's early evening when they arrive, and snowing. Shepard spends a moment outside the airport while they wait in line for a skycar trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

No one in the line recognizes them. No one tries to grab a picture or a vid of Commander Shepard, Hero of the Citadel, Savior of the Galaxy, etcetera, etcetera, eating snowflakes out of the air like a child. Weary travelers, not with the whiff of shellshock on them but already returned to a kind of normalcy. She feels a strange fondness for these people, strangers all, who have survived the unthinkable and gone back to their lives already, who do not even notice her. That such a thing could exist is its own kind of miracle-work.

Thane holds a hand out, bringing it closer to examine the patterns in the flakes when he catches a few.

"Well?" Shepard asks.

He holds his hand back out for more, as the first batch have now melted. "It's lovely."

She drowses again in the car, and when she wakes, they're deep in a mountainous forest, in front of an overstated lodge. The warm yellow light from the windows shines out into the snow.

Shepard's first—some would call it uncharitable—thought is that of course, Miranda would be holed up here. Somewhere excessive, somewhere beautiful, somewhere isolated. In fairness to herself, it is a _fond_ thought, rooted in the idea that Miranda deserves such a thing for herself. But that thought falls quickly away, replaced by what a striking resemblance this place has to a silly childhood fantasy.

She steps out of the car, the mountain air a little thin and cold and humid on her face, refreshing after the warmth inside the taxi. The driver pulls their few pieces of luggage from the trunk, takes his payment, and departs.

"I liked the story you told me," Thane says as the taillights fade, leaving the snow falling thick and soft around them.

"Which one?"

He smiles again. He's been so free with them, these past few weeks. "You know which one."

She tips her face up to the snow. "You had a co-conspirator, I think."

"Yes. Miranda liked the gingerbread house."

The door to the lodge opens, and what had been muffled by snow and building materials now pours forth: recycled Christmas music in the background, the scent of snickerdoodles sneaking through the cold air, and talk and laughter within.

"If you stand out there much longer," Miranda calls, drink in hand, "you're going to rust, and then you'll miss out on this hot toddy I made for you."

Shepard reaches for Thane's hand. "Didn't want a peaceful holiday, did they?"

"I think this is a kind of peace."

Shepard decides as she moves forward toward the door, toward the shouted and murmured greetings, that Thane is absolutely right.


End file.
